(1851) THE COUP D’ETAT OF LOUIS NAPOLEON, Alexis de Tocqueville

By his astounding act of December 2, 1851, known as the coup d’etat, Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, commonly called Louis Napoleon, practically assumed imperial power, and on the first anniversary of that coup d’etat he was officially proclaimed Emperor of the French under the title of Napoleon III.  He was the son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland—­a brother of Napoleon I—­and was born in Paris, April 20, 1808.  From 1815 to 1830 he lived in exile.  In 1836 he made an unsuccessful attempt to organize a revolution among the French soldiers at Strasburg.  Four years later he tried to seize the throne of France; but failing in this attempt, he was imprisoned in the fortress of Ham until 1846, when he escaped to England.  During his confinement he continued in his writings a Bonapartist propaganda.  He had addressed himself particularly to the workingmen, and this class won a victory in the Revolution of February, 1848.  After the fall of Louis Philippe in that year, Napoleon was elected to the National Assembly, largely by the votes of the working classes, and on June 13, 1848, took his seat.  In December he was elected President of the Republic by an immense majority.

Although he was regarded as possessing a rather dull intellect, and as being, partly for that reason, a “safe” man for the presidential office, Napoleon soon proved his capacity for intrigue and for cajoling the people.  By intervening in behalf of Pope Pius IX, whom revolutionists had driven from Rome, he gained the support of the clergy.  Napoleon’s troops restored Pius IX (1850) to the papal throne.  The President’s aims at supremacy were approved by the French monarchists, and he used all means to increase his popularity, placing only his adherents in office.

When the Assembly, composed of seven hundred sixty members, undertook to restrict the suffrage, which was “universal,” Napoleon opposed the change.  He thus appeared to be the champion of the people against the legislative body.  As his term was to expire on May 2, 1852, and as he was ineligible for a second term, although he knew that a majority of the people favored his continuance in office, he saw no way to accomplish that except by force.  He therefore determined to use force, and the method he adopted was that of the coup d’etat.  The success of that stroke insured all that he aimed at.  In December, 1851, by an almost unanimous vote he was elected President for ten years.  All his “ideas” and purposes were embodied in a new constitution, and before the end of 1852 the question of restoring the empire was submitted to the people; and by the plebiscite of November, in that year, an enormous majority of the voters elected him Emperor.