Portrait de Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte en Prince-Président

Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte (1808–1873) was a nephew of Napoleon I and the most direct Bonapartist heir by the mid-nineteenth century. After the Revolution of 1848 and the abdication of King Louis-Philippe, he returned to France from exile in England and won an overwhelming election as president of the Second Republic. On December 2, 1851, in the third year of the single four-year presidential term allowed by the constitution, he staged a coup d'état, dissolved the legislative assembly, decreed a new constitution, and assumed dictatorial powers, a move that was subsequently approved by a public referendum of dubious legitimacy. A year later, on December 2, 1852, again the anniversary of Napoleon I's coronation as emperor, Louis-Napoleon declared the dissolution of the Republic and the establishment of the Second Empire. He took the title Emperor Napoleon III.