-
Napoleon was born in exile and was determined to regain the throne of France. He was the third son of Napoleon I's brother Louis Bonaparte, who was king of Holland from 1806 to 1810, and his wife, Hortense de Beauharnais Bonaparte, stepdaughter of Napoleon I.
-
The French government banished the members of the Bonaparte family from French territory. Hortense and Louis-Napoleon, 8 years old at this time, left for Augsburg in Germany.
-
Louis-Napoleon entered the military school at Thoune, near Berne in Switzerland, to study gunnery.The law banishing the Bonaparte family from France was abolished.Louis-Napoleon and Hortense returned to Rome. Louis-Napoleon rejoined his brother Napoleon-Louis and the revolutionary forces in Florence, before joining those in Bologna.
-
Louis-Napoleon became an artillery captain of the canton of Berne.He supported (from Geneva) the Lyonese insurrection against Louis-Philippe.He published a Manuel d'artillerie, used by the Swiss army.
-
After the 1848 Revolution, he was elected president of the Second Republic (1850–1852)
-
The Assembly refused to vote 1.8 million francs for the president of the Republic. New struggle between Louis-Napoleon and the National Assembly over the revision of the constitution and the article forbidding the president to serve a second mandate.
-
Louis-Napoleon was proclaimed emperor, with the title of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. The Second Empire had begun. The rules of succession were established, in favour (only) of the descendants of Louis-Napoleon and his uncle Jerome.
-
France and Britain declare war on Russia. The Crimea was soon to become a slaughterhouse.
-
The tsar of Russia, Alexander II, agreed to sign preliminaries for a peace treaty with the French and the British.
-
Napoleon III took command of the Army of the Rhine at Metz. The force of numbers was unequal, as the French only disposed of 240 000 men, against the Prussians and their German allies with 500 000 men.The Prussians took Wissembourg and then invaded France.
-
Battle of Sedan. Napoleon III defeated and surrendered himself to the Prussians. The Emperor was imprisoned in the fortress of Wilhelmshohe.The Legislative Body voted the deposition of Napoleon III, the proclamation of the Third Republic, and the creation of a provisional government of national defence by Thiers.
-
Death of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. His embalmed body was laid in state in the chapel of rest at Camden Place.
