Story Highlights
- Historical event:
- 20 April 1808
- All members of the Bonaparte dynasty had to emigrate from France after the fall of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. His young nephew Napoleon III spent a lot of time in Switzerland and Italy, and it is interesting to note that he even went to the USA and Brazil.
Napoleon III, a nephew of the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, was born on this day in 1808. He also became the Emperor of the French thirty years after the death of his uncle. He ruled France from 1852 to 1870, until the Germans defeated him.
His name was Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, and he was a son of Napoleon’s younger brother Louis who became the king of the Netherlands, a satellite state of the French Empire (due to his brother). Hortense de Beauharnais, daughter of Napoleon’s wife Josephine, was mother of Napoleon III. Of course, the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte was Hortense’s stepfather, so little Napoleon III and his uncle were connected through the male line, and also through the maternal line.
To make things even better, Emperor Napoleon I was also the godfather of little Napoleon III at his baptism, which was held in 1810. As a boy, Napoleon III spent some time with his uncle. Napoleon was preparing to go to Waterloo (in 1815), when he saw him for the last time. Napoleon III was only seven years old when his uncle was finally defeated.
All members of the Bonaparte dynasty had to emigrate from France after Napoleon’s fall. Napoleon III spent a lot of time in Switzerland and Italy, and it is interesting to note that he even went to the USA and Brazil. He spent some time in New York and London. He met Charles Dickens and other people of the early Victorian era in England.
Napoleon III became the Emperor of the French in 1852 (before that, he had been elected president in 1848).
