What kind of state did Napoleon III build in France?

EEARLY NATIONALISM WAS GENERALLY LIBERAL and idealistic and often democratic and radical. Yet nationalism can also flourish in authoritarian and dictatorial states. Napoleon Bonaparte’s France had already combined national feeling with authoritarian rule. Napoleon’s nephew, Louis Napoleon, revived and extended this merger.

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Paris in the Second EmpireThe flash and glitter of unprecedented prosperity in the Second Empire come alive in this vibrant contemporary painting. Writers and intellectuals chat with elegant women and trade witticisms with financiers and government officials at the Café Tortoni, a favorite rendezvous for fashionable society. Horse-drawn omnibuses with open top decks mingle with cabs and private carriages on the broad new boulevard. (Musée de la Ville de Paris, Musée Carnavalet, Paris/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library)