Napoleon III intended to be always ahead of public opinion so as to be able to understand the requirements of his time and to create laws and institutions accordingly. Hence, he took the greatest pains to study the public opinion and to influence it by means of propaganda. Although promising “reasonable freedom,” for the time being he considered it necessary to use the methods of a police state.

Willing “to take the initiative to do everything useful for the prosperity and the greatness of France,” he promoted public works, the construction of railroads, the establishment of institutions of credit, and other means of furthering industry and agriculture. An enthusiastic promoter of great technical projects, he supported inventors and took a personal interest in the rebuilding of modern Paris.

He did not, however, disavow what he called his “love of the diligent and needy.” He ensured a lower price for bread, furthered the construction of hygienic dwellings for workers, and established boards of arbitration. In his societies of mutual assistance, employers and employees were to learn to understand each other. He hoped that his social-welfare institutions, to the endowment of which he frequently contributed, would be imitated by the citizens. The middle class, however, looked upon him only as its protector against Socialism and regarded his social ideas as mere utopianism.

Foreign policy as emperor

As in domestic policy, the Emperor immediately took the initiative in foreign affairs. “Louis-Philippe fell because he let France fall into disrepute. I must do something,” he declared. He wanted to make France a great power once more by breaking up the European system created by the Congress of Vienna of 1815, which, incidentally, had imposed great humiliations on France. Convinced that in the present “epoch of civilization the successes of armies were only temporary” and that it was “public opinion which always gained the final victory,” he planned “to march at the head of generous and noble ideas,” among which the principle of nationality was the most important. In accordance with this principle he wanted an international congress to reconstruct “the European balance of power on more durable and just foundations.” And “if other countries gain anything France must gain something also.”

The Crimean War offered him a chance of realizing one of his favourite ideas: the conclusion of an alliance with Great Britain that would succeed in checking Russian expansion toward the Mediterranean. After the Paris conference, at which the peace terms were settled, Napoleon seemed to become Europe’s arbitrator. Ironically, it was an attempt on his life by Felice Orsini, an Italian revolutionary (January 1858), that reminded him of his wish “to do something for Italy.” Together with Piedmont-Sardinia, he went to war against Austria in order to expel it from Italy. A promoter of technical warfare, he witnessed the success of his modernized artillery and of the military use of the captive balloon. The fact that at the victorious Battle of Solferino in June 1859 he had been in command convinced him of his military genius. Yet, frightened by the possibility of intervention by the German Confederation, he suddenly made peace. Outmanoeuvred by Count Cavour, who confronted him with a unified Italy instead of the weak federation he had intended, he received Nice and Savoy as a reward. His activities in Italy displeased the British. Despite the conclusion of an Anglo-French commercial treaty in 1860, they remained suspicious and apprehensively watched his construction of armoured warships and his colonial and oriental policies.

Napoleon III dreamed of “opening new ways to commerce and new outlets to European products overseas,” of accelerating “the progress of Christianity and civilization.” He was therefore open to a colonial policy bent on furthering commercial interests and the establishment of bases. He intensified the extension of French power in Indochina and West Africa. In the Middle East the Emperor hoped that a better treatment of the Algerians would have a favourable influence on the Arabs from Tunisia to the Euphrates. He supported the construction of the Suez Canal. When the Roman Catholic Maronites who were under French protection in Lebanon were persecuted in 1860, he hoped to profit politically by dispatching an expeditionary force.