Editing Napoleon III (section)

==Life at the court of Napoleon III==
[[File:PierreTetarVanElvenFêteAuxTuileries10juin1867.JPG|thumb|upright=0.9|The [[Tuileries Palace]] during the gala soirée of 10 June 1867, hosted by Napoleon III for the sovereigns attending the [[Paris International Exhibition of 1867]].]]

Following the model of the kings of France and of his uncle, [[Napoleon|Napoleon Bonaparte]], Napoleon III moved his official residence to the [[Tuileries Palace]], where he had a suite of rooms on the ground floor of the south wing between the Seine and the [[Pavillon de l'Horloge]] (Clock Pavilion), facing the garden.

Napoleon III's bedroom was decorated with a talisman from [[Charlemagne]] (a symbol of good luck for the [[House of Bonaparte|Bonaparte family]]), while his office featured a portrait of [[Julius Caesar]] by [[Ingres]] and a large map of Paris that he used to show his ideas for the reconstruction of Paris to his prefect of the Seine department, Baron [[Georges-Eugène Haussmann]]. The Emperor's rooms were overheated and were filled with smoke, as he smoked cigarette after cigarette. The Empress occupied a suite of rooms just above his, highly decorated in [[Louis XVI style]] with a pink salon, a green salon and a blue salon.{{Sfn|Girard|1986|pp=200–201}}

The court moved with the Emperor and Empress from palace to palace each year following a regular calendar. At the beginning of May, the Emperor and court moved to the [[Château de Saint-Cloud]] for outdoor activities in the park. In June and July, they moved with selected guests to the [[Palace of Fontainebleau]] for walks in the forest and boating on the lake. In July, the court moved to thermal baths for a health cure, first to [[Plombières]], then to [[Vichy]], and then, after 1856, to the military camp and residence built at [[Châlons-sur-Marne]] (nowadays: Châlons-en-Champagne), where Napoleon could take the waters and review military parades and exercises. Beginning in 1856, the Emperor and Empress spent each September in [[Biarritz]] in the [[Villa Eugénie]], a large villa overlooking the sea.<ref>[http://thegrandhotelsoftheworld.com/palais "History of the Hotel du Palais, the former Villa Eugenie"]. Grand Hotels of the World.com</ref> They would walk on the beach or travel to the mountains, and in the evenings, they would dance and sing and play cards and take part in other games and amateur theatricals and charades with their guests. In November, the court moved to the [[Château de Compiègne]] for forest excursions, dancing and more games. Famous scientists and artists, such as [[Louis Pasteur]], [[Gustave Flaubert]], [[Eugène Delacroix]] and [[Giuseppe Verdi]], were invited to participate in the festivities at Compiègne.{{Sfn|Girard|1986|pp=202–204}}

At the end of the year the Emperor and court returned to the Tuileries Palace and gave a series of formal receptions and three or four grand balls with six hundred guests early in the new year. Visiting dignitaries and monarchs were frequently invited. During [[Carnival]], there was a series of very elaborate costume balls on the themes of different countries and different historical periods, for which guests sometimes spent small fortunes on their costumes.

===Visual arts===
{{Main|Napoleon III style|Paris during the Second Empire}}
Napoleon III had conservative and traditional taste in art: his favourite painters were [[Alexandre Cabanel]] and [[Franz Xaver Winterhalter]], who received major commissions, and whose work was purchased for state museums. At the same time, he followed public opinion, and he made an important contribution to the French [[avant-garde]]. In 1863, the jury of the [[Paris Salon]], the famous annual showcase of French painting, headed by the ultra-conservative director of the [[Académie des Beaux-Arts]], Count [[Émilien de Nieuwerkerke]], refused all submissions by avant-garde artists, including those by [[Édouard Manet]], [[Camille Pissarro]] and [[Johan Jongkind]]. The artists and their friends complained, and the complaints reached Napoleon III. His office issued a statement: "Numerous complaints have come to the Emperor on the subject of the works of art which were refused by the jury of the Exposition. His Majesty, wishing to let the public judge the legitimacy of these complaints, has decided that the works of art which were refused should be displayed in another part of the [[Palais de l'Industrie|Palace of Industry]]."<ref>Published in ''[[Le Moniteur Universel]]'' on 24 April 1863. Cited in {{Harvnb|Maneglier|1990|p=173}}.</ref>

Following Napoleon's decree, an exhibit of the rejected paintings, called the [[Salon des Refusés]], was held in another part of the Palace of Industry, where the Salon took place. More than a thousand visitors a day came to see now-famous paintings such as [[Édouard Manet]]'s {{Lang|fr|[[Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe]] }} and [[James McNeill Whistler]]'s ''[[Symphony in White, No. 1: The White Girl]]''. '{{Sfn|Maneglier|1990}}{{Page needed|date=March 2021}} The journalist [[Émile Zola]] reported that visitors pushed to get into the crowded galleries where the refused paintings were hung, and the rooms were full of the laughter and mocking comments of many of the spectators. While the paintings were ridiculed by many critics and visitors, the work of the avant-garde became known for the first time to the French public, and it took its place alongside the more traditional style of painting.{{Sfn|Maneglier|1990|p=173}}

Napoleon III also began or completed the restoration of several important historic landmarks, carried out for him by [[Eugène Viollet-le-Duc]]. He restored the [[flèche (architecture)|flèche]], or spire, of the Cathedral of [[Notre-Dame de Paris]], which had been partially destroyed and desecrated during the [[French Revolution]]. In 1855, he completed the restoration, begun in 1845, of the stained-glass windows of the [[Sainte-Chapelle]], and in 1862, he declared it a national historical monument. In 1853, he approved and provided funding for Viollet-le-Duc's restoration of the medieval town of [[Carcassonne]]. He also sponsored Viollet-le-Duc's restoration of the [[Château de Vincennes]] and the [[Château de Pierrefonds]]. In 1862, he closed the prison which had occupied the Abbey of [[Mont-Saint-Michel]] since the French Revolution, where many important political prisoners had been held, so it could be restored and opened to the public.