First published 1991 by Addison Wesley Longman Limited
Fourth impression 1999
Published 2013 by Routledge
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ISBN 13: 978-0-582-49483-1 (pbk)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
McMillan, James F. 1948
Napoleon III. (Profiles in power).
I. Title
994.07092
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
McMillan, James F., 1948
Napoleon Ill/James McMillan.
p. cm. - (Profiles in power)
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 0-582-49483-4 (paper) - ISBN 0-582-08353-2 (cased)
1. Napoleon III, Emperor of the French, 18081873.
2. France-Kings and rulers-Biography.
3. France-History-1848-1870.
I. Title. II. Series: Profiles in power
(London, England)
DC280.M43 1991
944.07092-dc20
[B]
Set in 10.5/12pt Linotron 202 Baskerville
NAPOLEON III AND THE HISTORIANS
What posterity would make of him was something which mattered a great deal to Napoleon III. Historians, however, have disagreed as much as contemporaries over his character, aims and achievements. His admirers usually portray him as the unfortunate victim of a long tradition of historiographical vilification, but the fact is that he has had a good press for over half a century, especially in Britain and America. He may still await his French national monument (would-be pilgrims must visit his tomb at Farnborough Abbey, Hampshire) but the black legend that once attached to his regime has been dispelled by historical scholarship.1
The basic explanation for the wide divergence of opinion is that, well into the twentieth century, the writing of history continued to be a highly partisan activity in France, both reflecting and reinforcing the ideological divisions created by the Revolution and the revolutionary tradition. From a republican perspective, Napoleon III was not only the ignominious failure who had led France to shameful defeat in the Franco-Prussian War but also the man of blood, the usurper who on 2 December 1851 violently overthrew the Second Republic.2 The fact that prominent writers and artists with republican sympathies were among the fiercest critics of the regime also helped to damage his reputation with posterity. Victor Hugo pilloried the Emperor as a bandit and dubbed him Napoleon the Little.3 The painter and satirist Daumier invented the character Ratapoil, a louche, cynical and self-seeking adventurer, to epitomise the Empire.4 Out of the same historiographical stable came Taxil de Lords Histoire du Second Empire (six volumes 186775), a rambling and abusive work by an opposition journalist and future republican deputy.
Not even the professionalisation of history in France rescued Napoleon from his detractors, since the leading lights of the profession were rarely free of a marked republican bias. Under the Third Republic the academy served the state and the historian was expected to defend the regime and its ideals. Thus for Lavisse and Seignobos, Protestants and anticlericals both as well as successive holders of the prestigious chair of History at the Sorbonne, the Empire had to be judged by its origins and early authoritarian character, though Seignobos did distinguish the Emperor from his regime, portraying him as a not unsympathetic but administratively incompetent figure, a prey to his venal and cynical Orleanist advisers.5
The distinction between the Emperor and the Empire was also drawn by historians who studied from other political vantage points. Albert Thomas, from a reformist socialist perspective, noted Napoleon IIIs idealism and sincerity, but characterised the Empire as a reactionary regime founded on the Emperors personal ambitions. As a socialist Thomas was particularly interested in how the workers had fared under the Empire. His verdict was that they were ill-served by the regimes paternalistic social policies and that the development of their organisation was hampered by the controls imposed by an authoritarian bureaucratic state. Nevertheless, he argued, by 1870 there were clear signs that the workers had become the advance guard of a mounting republican challenge to the regime. For a republican socialist like Thomas it was important to deny that the Second Empire had any genuine popular roots, particularly among workers.6
