How long napoleon bonaparte ruled france

However, the King of the French still believed in a version of monarchy that held the king as much more than a figurehead for an elected Parliament, and as such, he was quite active in politics. One of the first acts of Louis-Philippe in constructing his cabinet was to appoint the rather conservative Casimir Perier as the premier.

Perier, a banker, was instrumental in shutting down many of the Republican secret societies and labor unions that had formed during the early years of the regime. In addition, he oversaw the dismemberment of the National Guard after it proved too supportive of radical ideologies. The regime acknowledged early on that radicalism and republicanism threatened it by undermining its laissez-faire policies. Thus, the Monarchy declared the very term republican illegal in Guizot shut down republican clubs and disbanded republican publications.

Republicans within the cabinet, like the banker Dupont, were all but excluded by Perier and his conservative clique. Distrusting the sole National Guard, Louis-Philippe increased the size of the army and reformed it in order to ensure its loyalty to the government.

Louis-Philippe, who had flirted with liberalism in his youth, rejected much of the pomp and circumstance of the Bourbons and surrounded himself with merchants and bankers. The July Monarchy, however, remained a time of turmoil. A large group of Legitimists on the right demanded the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne.

On the left, Republicanism and later Socialism, remained a powerful force. Civil unrest continued after the July Revolution, supported by the left-wing press. Strikes and demonstrations were permanent. Late in his reign, Louis-Philippe became increasingly rigid and dogmatic. Around this same time, there was another economic downturn, which especially affected the lower classes.

Since the right of association was strictly restricted and public meetings prohibited after , the opposition was paralyzed. To sidestep this law, political dissidents used civil funerals of their comrades as occasions for public demonstrations. Family celebrations and banquets also served as pretexts for gatherings. This campaign of banquets Campagne des banquets , was intended to circumvent the governmental restriction on political meetings and provide a legal outlet for popular criticism of the regime.

The campaign began in July Friedrich Engels was in Paris from October and was able to observe and attend some of these banquets. The banquet campaign lasted until all political banquets were outlawed by the French government in February As a result, the people revolted, helping to unite the efforts of the popular Republicans and the liberal Orleanists, who turned their backs on Louis-Philippe.

Anger over the outlawing of the political banquets brought crowds of Parisians flooding into the streets at noon on February 22, An officer ordered the crowd not to pass, but people in the front of the crowd were being pushed by the rear.

The officer ordered his men to fix bayonets, probably wishing to avoid shooting. However, in what is widely regarded as an accident, a soldier discharged his musket, which resulted in the rest of the soldiers firing into the crowd. Fifty-two people were killed. Paris was soon a barricaded city. Omnibuses were turned into barricades, and thousands of trees were felled.

Fires were set, and angry citizens began converging to the royal palace. King Louis Philippe abdicated and fled to the UK. On February 26, , the liberal opposition from the Revolution came together to organize a provisional government, called the Second Republic, which was marked by disorganization and political ambiguity.

The French Revolution of had major consequences for all of Europe; popular democratic revolts against authoritarian regimes broke out in Austria and Hungary, in the German Confederation and Prussia, and in the Italian States of Milan, Venice, Turin and Rome.

Economic downturns and bad harvests during the s contributed to growing discontent. In February , the French government banned the holding of the Campagne des banquets , fundraising dinners by activists where critics of the regime would meet as public demonstrations and strikes were forbidden.

As a result, protests and riots broke out in the streets of Paris. An angry mob converged on the royal palace, after which the hapless king abdicated and fled to England. The Second Republic was then proclaimed. The revolution in France brought together classes of wildly different interests. Moderates like the aristocrat Alphonse de Lamartine sought a middle ground. Tensions between groups escalated, and in June , a working class insurrection in Paris cost the lives of 1, workers and eliminated once and for all the dream of a social welfare constitution.

The constitution of the Second Republic, ratified in September , was extremely flawed and permitted no effective resolution between the President and the Assembly in case of dispute. On February 26, , the liberal opposition came together to organize a provisional government.

The poet Alphonse de Lamartine was appointed president. Lamartine served as a virtual dictator of France for the next three months. Elections for a Constituent Assembly were scheduled for April 23, The Constituent Assembly was to establish a new republican government for France.

In preparation for these elections, two major goals of the provisional government were universal suffrage and unemployment relief. Universal male suffrage was enacted on March 2, , giving France nine million new voters.

As in all other European nations, women did not have the right to vote. The conservative elements of French society were wasting no time in organizing against the provisional government. Frustration among the laboring classes arose when the Constituent Assembly did not address the concerns of the workers. Strikes and worker demonstrations became more common as the workers gave vent to these frustrations. These demonstrations reached a climax when on May 15, , workers from the secret societies broke out in armed uprising against the anti-labor and anti-democratic policies being pursued by the Constituent Assembly and the Provisional Government.

Additionally, there was a major split between the citizens of Paris and citizens of the more rural areas of France. The provisional government set out to establish deeper government control of the economy and guarantee a more equal distribution of resources.

To deal with the unemployment problem, the provisional government established National Workshops. The unemployed were given jobs building roads and planting trees without regard for the demand for these tasks.

The population of Paris ballooned as job seekers from all over France came to Paris to work in the newly formed National Workshops. To pay for these and other social programs, the provisional government placed new taxes on land.

The taxes were widely disobeyed in the rural areas and the government remained strapped for cash. Popular uncertainty about the liberal foundations of the provisional government became apparent in the April 23, elections. Despite agitation from the left, voters elected a constituent assembly which was primarily moderate and conservative. Unknown in and forgotten or despised since , Louis Napoleon had in the last eight years advanced sufficiently in the public estimation to be elected to the Constituent Assembly in by five departments.

Moreover, the monarchists, led by Thiers and the committee of the Rue de Poitiers, were no longer content even with the safe dictatorship of the upright Cavaignac, and joined forces with the Bonapartists. Other appointees represented various royalist factions.

The regime had lost control in much of the country, and there was virtual civil war in some areas. There were fears of both a Jacobin resurgence and a royalist restoration, and Barras was rumoured to be planning to sell the country back to the Bourbons.

On October 23rd, the first day of Brumaire, Napoleon's elder brother, Lucien Bonaparte, was elected president of the Council of Five Hundred, one of the two assemblies set up under the constitution.

The other was the Council of Elders, with members. He and Napoleon agreed to work together. The banker Jean-Pierre Collot put up the money. The two assemblies, alarmed, moved from central Paris and the dreaded Parisian mob to the former Royal palace at Saint-Cloud. To ensure their safety they put General Bonaparte in command of all troops in the capital and he moved 6, men into place around the palace under his future Cavalry commander Joachim Murat.

From , the tide began to turn against Napoleon: France suffered several military defeats that drained resources, and in Napoleon oversaw the catastrophic failed invasion of Russia. France was forced to retreat, and of the original , frontline troops, fewer than 40, returned. Paris fell in March , and Napoleon went into exile on the island of Elba, over which he was given sovereignty. Meanwhile, his wife and son went to Austria.

But in February , after less than a year in exile, Napoleon escaped from Elba and marched on the French capital, and victoriously returned to power. This prompted Britain, Prussia, Russia and Austria to declare war. His success was short-lived: he governed for a period now known as the Hundred Days — a brief second reign brought to an end by the battle of Waterloo in June Helena in the southern Atlantic.

For the most part Napoleon was free to do as he pleased at his new home. He had leisurely mornings, wrote often and read a lot. But the tedious routine of life soon got to him, and he often shut himself indoors. Napoleon died on May 5, , on the island of St. Helena at the age of In early he was bedridden and growing weaker by the day. In April of that year, he dictated his last will:. I die before my time, killed by the English oligarchy and its hired assassins.

Originally a royal chapel built between and , the Invalides were turned into a military pantheon under Napoleon. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives.

Maximilien de Robespierre was an official during the French Revolution and one of the principal architects of the Reign of Terror. He took power in after the July Revolution, but was forced to abdicate after an uprising in He was married to Marie Antoinette and was executed for treason by guillotine in Under his reign, France became a leading European power.

He served as president from to During his presidency, he sold oil to Cuba and resisted efforts to stop narcotic trafficking in Colombia, and subsequently strained relations with the United States. He revoked the Edict of Nantes and is known for his aggressive foreign policy. Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military general who crowned himself the first emperor of France.