Editing Napoleon III (section)

==Legacy==
=== Construction ===
With [[Prosper Mérimée]], Napoleon III continued to seek the preservation of numerous medieval buildings in France that had been neglected since the French Revolution, a project Mérimée had begun during the [[July Monarchy]]. With [[Eugène Viollet-le-Duc]] acting as chief architect, many buildings were saved, including some of the most famous in France: [[Notre Dame de Paris|Notre Dame Cathedral]], [[Mont Saint-Michel]], [[Carcassonne]], [[Vézelay Abbey]], [[Château de Pierrefonds|Pierrefonds]], and [[Château de Roquetaillade|Roquetaillade]] castle.

Napoleon III also directed the building of the French railway network, which contributed to the development of the coal mining and steel industry in France. This advance radically changed the nature of the French economy, which entered the modern age of large-scale capitalism.{{Sfn|Wawro|2005|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=q1tPB20IMMoC&pg=PA8 p. 8]}} The French economy, the second largest in the world at the time (behind the British economy), experienced a very strong growth during the reign of Napoleon III.<ref>{{Cite web |title=France – The Second Empire, 1852–70 |url=https://www.britannica.com/place/France/The-Second-Empire-1852-70 |access-date=14 February 2021 |website=Encyclopedia Britannica}}</ref> Names such as steel tycoon [[Eugène Schneider]] and banking mogul [[James Mayer Rothschild|James de Rothschild]] are symbols of the period. Two of France's largest banks, [[Société Générale]] and [[Crédit Lyonnais]], still in existence today, were founded during that period. The French stock market also expanded prodigiously, with many coal mining and steel companies issuing stocks. Historians credit Napoleon chiefly for supporting the railways, but not otherwise building the economy.<ref>Charles P. Kindleberger, ''Economic Growth in France and Britain 1851–1950'' (1964) pp. 6, 42, 186–188</ref>

Napoleon's military pressure and Russian mistakes, culminating in the Crimean War, dealt a blow to the [[Concert of Europe]], since it precipitated a war that disrupted the post-Napoleonic peace, although the ultimately diplomatic solution to the war demonstrated the continued vitality of the system. The concert was based on stability and balance of powers, whereas Napoleon attempted to rearrange the world map to France's advantage.

A [[Canon obusier de 12|12-pound cannon]] designed by France is commonly referred to as a "Napoleon cannon" or "12-pounder Napoleon" in his honor.

===Assessment and reputation===
[[File:Napoléon III (1808–1873), Emperor of the French MET DP225833.jpg|thumb|right|Bust of Napoleon III, by [[Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux]], {{Circa|1873}}]]
The historical reputation of Napoleon III is far below that of his uncle and had been heavily tarnished by the empire's military failures in Mexico and against Prussia. [[Victor Hugo]] portrayed him as "Napoleon the Small" (''[[Napoléon le Petit]]''), a mere mediocrity, in contrast with Napoleon I "The Great", presented as a military and administrative genius. In France, such arch-opposition from the age's central literary figure, whose attacks on Napoleon III were obsessive and powerful, made it impossible for a very long time to assess his reign objectively. [[Karl Marx]], in ''[[The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon]]'', famously mocked Napoleon III by saying "[[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]] remarks somewhere that all great world-historical facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce." Napoleon III has often been seen as an authoritarian but ineffectual leader who brought France into dubious, and ultimately disastrous, foreign military adventures.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Stephen E. Hanson |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iwRIvFgiArYC&pg=PA90 |title=Post-Imperial Democracies: Ideology and Party Formation in Third Republic France, Weimar Germany, and Post-Soviet Russia |date=2010 |publisher=Cambridge UP |isbn=978-1-1394-9149-5 |page=90}}</ref>

Historians by the 1930s saw the Second Empire as a precursor of [[fascism]], but by the 1950s were celebrating it as leading example of a modernizing regime.<ref>Roger Price, "Napoleon III and the French Second Empire: A Reassessment of a Controversial Period in French History." ''Historian'' (
1996) #52 : 4–10.</ref>{{Sfn|Spitzer|1962|pp=308–329}} However, historians have generally given Napoleon negative evaluations on his foreign policy, and somewhat more positive evaluations of his domestic policies, especially after he liberalized his rule after 1858. His greatest achievements came in material improvements, in the form of a grand railway network that facilitated commerce and tied the nation together and centered it on Paris. He is given high credits for the rebuilding of Paris with broad boulevards, striking public buildings, very attractive residential districts for upscale Parisians, and great public parks, including the [[Bois de Boulogne]] and [[Bois de Vincennes]], used by all classes of Parisians.<ref>De Moncan, Patrice, "Les Jardins du Baron Haussmann" (2009), pp. 9–10</ref> He promoted French business and exports. In international policy, he tried to emulate his uncle, with numerous imperial ventures around the world, as well as wars in Europe. He badly mishandled the threat from Prussia and found himself without allies in the face of overwhelming force.{{Sfn|Wolf|1963|p=275}}

===In films===

Napoleon has been portrayed by:
* [[Walter Kingsford]] in
**''[[The Story of Louis Pasteur]]'' (1936)
**''[[A Dispatch from Reuter's]]'' (1940)
* [[Frank Vosper]] in ''[[Spy of Napoleon]]'' (1936)
* [[Guy Bates Post]] in
**''[[Maytime (1937 film)|Maytime]]'' (1937)
**''[[The Mad Empress]]'' (1939)
* [[Leon Ames (actor)|Leon Ames]] in ''[[Suez (film)|Suez]]'' (1938)
* [[Claude Rains]] in ''[[Juarez (1939 film)|Juarez]]'' (1939)
* [[Walter Franck]] in ''[[Bismarck (1940 film)|Bismarck]]'' (1940)
* [[Jerome Cowan]] in ''[[The Song of Bernadette (film)|The Song of Bernadette]]'' (1943)
* David Bond in ''[[The Sword of Monte Cristo]]'' (1951)
* [[Siegfried Wischnewski]] in ''[[Maximilian von Mexiko]]'' (1970).<ref>{{Cite web |date=20 March 1970 |title=Maximilian von Mexiko |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0379886 |access-date=19 November 2019 |website=[[Internet Movie Database]]}}</ref>
* Robert Dumont in ''[[Those Years]]'' (Spanish: ''Aquellos años'', 1973).<ref>{{Cite web |date=21 March 1974 |title=Aquellos años |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0193724 |access-date=19 November 2019 |website=[[Internet Movie Database]]}}</ref>
* Julian Sherrier in ''[[Edward the Seventh]]'' (1975)
* [[Nick Jameson]] in ''[[The Secret Diary of Desmond Pfeiffer]]'' (1998)
* [[Erwin Steinhauer]] in ''[[Sisi (miniseries)|Sisi]]'' (2009).<ref>{{Cite web |date=16 December 2009 |title=Sisi |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1442136 |access-date=19 November 2019 |website=[[Internet Movie Database]]}}</ref>

Napoleon III also plays a small but crucial role in ''[[April and the Extraordinary World]]'' (2015).

===In fiction===
Napoleon III is a principal character (with [[Horatio Hornblower]]) in [[C. S. Forester]]'s final story ''[[The Last Encounter]]''.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Forester |first=C. S. |date=8 May 1966 |title=The Last Encounter |pages=8–10 |work=Sunday Mirror}}</ref>
Life in the Second Empire is depicted in [[Emile Zola]]'s epic Rougon-Macquart cycle of 20 novels. Napoleon III appears in ''[[La Curée]]'' (1872), when the Saccards attend a ball at the Tuileries.
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