Volume 27, Number 14 · September 25, 1980
His Uncle's Nephew
By A.J.P. Taylor
Napoleon III and Eugénie
by Jasper Ridley
Viking, 768 pp., $25.00
Prince Louis Napoleon once occupied a great place on the European stage. From 1852 to 1870 he was Napoleon III. Emperor of the French, reviving if only in name the glories of his uncle. The other European rulers feared and courted him. Queen Victoria visited him at Paris with her family and entertained him at Osborne. Alexander II, Emperor of Russia, and Franz Joseph, Emperor of Austria, both sought his favor, though neither was prepared to pay a high price for it. Conservatives hailed him as the Guardian of Order. At the other end of the spectrum Victor Hugo called him Napoleon le Petit and Marx exercised his wit on 'Badinguet,' allegedly (though Ridley says incorrectly) the name of the building worker in whose clothes Louis Napoleon escaped from his prison at Ham. Other revolutionaries, including Kossuth, thought that he could be won for the cause of nationalism.
Review, 2602 words
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