Napoleon III and his carnival empire

the long version

Louis Napoleon, nephew to the famous Bonaparte, is one of the most colorful historical actors of the nineteenth century. Bohemian, adventurer, and compulsive Don Juan, he managed, to the astonishment of virtually everyone, to be elected President of France in 1848 and within three years staged the coup d'etat that made him Emperor. Reigned over by this genial roue and his beautiful Empress Eugenie, the splendid circus known as the Second Empire was one of the most glittering and licentious epochs in French history -- a time when the music of Offenbach, the gowns of Worth, and the splendid new boulevards of Haussmann brought Paris world renown as the City of Light. - Jacket flap.